Columba's Crossing - A BBC Scotland Documentary

1997 marked the 1400th anniversary of the death of St Columba (Colmcille), founder of the Early Christian Monastery at Iona in Scotland. Many transnational projects were organised between Ireland and Scotland to commemorate St Columba's life, one of which was the making of this documentary by BBC Scotland. Part of the documentary was the recreation of Saint Columba's Crossing from the north west of Ireland to Iona. A replica of the type of currach (or coracle) used at the time was built in Mayo Abbey, County Mayo by a group of people from Kilmartin Museum, Argyle (www.kilmartin.org) and sailed to Iona from Newcastle, County Down. Sixty Years after the death of St Columba (Colmcille) St Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne, having lost his defence of the Celtic Church's method of calculating the date for celebrating Easter at the Synod of Whitby (664AD), retreated to Iona with sixty Saxon monks, then returned to the Island of Inish Bofin off the Galway coast and ultimately came inland to Mayo Abbey (Maigh Eó - The Plain of the Yew Trees), where in 667AD he founded a monastery for his Saxon followers, making St Gerard the first Abbot. The monastery became known as ‘Mayo of the Saxons’ and for more than a thousand years it remained the most important centre in the region becoming in turn a Diocese, a Norman town and gave it’s name to County Mayo, the third largest county in Ireland. © BBC Scotland 1997